Provably Total Primitive Recursive Functions: Theories with Induction

Abstract

A natural example of a function algebra is \(\mathcal{R}\)(T), the class of provably total computable functions (p.t.c.f.) of a theory T in the language of first order Arithmetic. In this paper a simple characterization of that kind of function algebras is obtained. This provides a useful tool for studying the class of primitive recursive functions in \(\mathcal{R}\)(T). We prove that this is the class of p.t.c.f. of the theory axiomatized by the induction scheme restricted to (parameter free) Δ1(T)–formulas (i.e. Σ1–formulas which are equivalent in T to Π1–formulas).